Book jackets of various types for the protection of books have been known for probably as long as books have been published. The jackets can have a broad variety of shapes. In one book jacket, a plain rectangular paper is folded around the outer, front and back covers of the book to be protected and affixed with tape or the like. See, the example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,341,401 to Arntzen; 2,145,099 to Sharp; 4,209,187 to Forrest; and 1,595,002 to Davis. These book jackets are generally cumbersome to apply, particularly when the jacket has a decorative display that needs to overlay the outer front book cover, and thus requires careful alignment to obtain a proper fit.
In one known book jacket for telephone directories an outer sheet of vinyl is formed with a length selected to precisely fit with a book of known thickness and having known front and back cover dimensions. The outer sheet is provided with inner sheets that are affixed at the ends of the outer sheets to form pockets. The pockets are sized to receive the front and back outer book covers whose ends seat against the bottoms of the pockets. Such book jackets are made to fit one book size and do not fit around books whose outer covers are the same but have a greater thickness and do not fit snugly when placed around thinner books.
In French Pat. No. 807,264 a book jacket is provided with cover segments and end extensions. Sleeves are formed to wrap around the front and back book covers and may either be separate sleeves or be affixed to the end extensions to hold the jacket in place. As can be seen in the view of FIG. 2 of this patent, the book jacket does not conform closely to the book cover.
In French Pat. No. 2,048,098 a book binding is described formed of rigid front and back cover portions that are joined at hinges to a rigid spine whose thickness corresponds to the thickness of the book to be covered. One portion is provided with a jacket and the other portion has a sleeve. Such book binding, however, is intended for a book whose spine has a fixed thickness with front and back covers that are of fixed length.